It occurred to him that it might be a good time to stop cursing and start praying.
London, two years later
SHE’D BEEN HOME from her work no more than five minutes. Just time to meet Roger’s mad charge across the floor, shrieking “MUMMY!”, she pretending to be staggered by his impact—not so much a pretense; he was getting big. Just time to call out to her own mum, hear the muffled reply from the kitchen, sniff hopefully for the comforting smell of tea and catch a tantalizing whiff of tinned sardines that made her mouth water—a rare treat.
Just time to sit down for what seemed the first time in days, and take off her high-heeled shoes, relief washing over her feet like seawater when the tide comes in. She noticed with dismay the hole in the heel of her stocking, though. Her last pair, too. She was just undoing her garter, thinking that she’d have to start using leg-tan like Maisie, drawing a careful seam up the back of each leg with an eyebrow pencil, when there came a knock at the door.
“Mrs. MacKenzie?” The man who stood at the door of her mother’s flat was tall, a dark silhouette in the dimness of the hall, but she knew at once he was a soldier.
“Yes?” She couldn’t help the leap of her heart, the clench of her stomach. She tried frantically to damp it down, deny it, the hope that had sprung up like a struck match. A mistake. There’d been a mistake. He hadn’t been killed, he’d been lost somehow, maybe captured, and now they’d found hi—then she saw the small box in the soldier’s hand and her legs gave way under her.
Her vision sparkled at the edges, and the stranger’s face swam above her, blurred with concern. She could hear, though—hear her mum rush through from the kitchen, slippers slapping in her haste, voice raised in agitation. Heard the man’s name, Captain Randall, Frank Randall. Hear Roger’s small husky voice warm in her ear, saying “Mummy? Mummy?” in confusion.
Then she was on the swaybacked davenport, holding a cup of hot water that smelled of tea—they could only change the tea leaves once a week, and this was Friday, she thought irrelevantly. He should have come on Sunday, her mum was saying, they could have given him a decent cuppa. But perhaps he didn’t work on Sundays?
Her mum had put Captain Randall in the best chair, near the electric fire, and had switched on two bars as a sign of hospitality. Her mother was chatting with the captain, holding Roger in her lap. Her son was more interested in the little box sitting on the tiny pie-crust table; he kept reaching for it, but his grandmother wouldn’t let him have it. Marjorie recognized the intent look on his face. He wouldn’t throw a fit—he hardly ever did—but he wouldn’t give up, either.
He didn’t look a lot like his father, save when he wanted something badly. She pulled herself up a bit, shaking her head to clear the dizziness, and Roger looked up at her, distracted by her movement. For an instant, she saw Jerry look out of his eyes, and the world swam afresh. She closed her own, though, and gulped her tea, scalding as it was.
Mum and Captain Randall had been talking politely, giving her time to recover herself. Did he have children of his own? Mum asked.
“No,” he said, with what might have been a wistful look at wee Roger. “Not yet. I haven’t seen my wife in two years.”
“Better late than never,” said a sharp voice, and she was surprised to discover that it was hers. She put down the cup, pulled up the loose stocking that had puddled round her ankle, and fixed Captain Randall with a look. “What have you brought me?” she said, trying for a tone of calm dignity. Didn’t work; she sounded brittle as broken glass, even to her own ears.
Captain Randall eyed her cautiously, but took up the little box and held it out to her.
“It’s Lieutenant MacKenzie’s,” he said. “An MID oakleaf cluster. Awarded posthumously for—”
With an effort, she pushed herself away, back into the cushions, shaking her head.
“I don’t want it.”
“Really, Marjorie!” Her mother was shocked.
“And I don’t like that word. Pos—posth—don’t say it.”
She couldn’t overcome the notion that Jerry was somehow inside the box—a notion that seemed dreadful at one moment, comforting the next. Captain Randall set it down, very slowly, as though it might blow up.
“I won’t say it,” he said gently. “May I say, though… I knew him. Your husband. Very briefly, but I did know him. I came with this myself, because I wanted to say to you how very brave he was.”
“Brave.” The word was like a pebble in her mouth. She wished she could spit it at him.
“Of course he was,” her mother said firmly. “Hear that, Roger? Your dad was a good man, and he was a brave one. You won’t forget that.”
Roger was paying no attention, struggling to get down. His gran set him reluctantly on the floor and he lurched over to Captain Randall, taking a firm grip on the Captain’s fresh-creased trousers with both hands—hands greasy, she saw, with sardine oil and toast crumbs. The captain’s lips twitched, but he didn’t try to detach Roger; just patted his head.
“Who’s a good boy, then?” he asked.
“Fith,” Roger said firmly. “Fith!”
Marjorie felt an incongruous impulse to laugh at the captain’s puzzled expression, though it didn’t touch the stone in her heart.
“It’s his new word,” she said. “Fish. He can’t say ‘sardine.’”
“Thar… DEEM!” Roger said, glaring at her. “Fitttthhhhh!”
The captain laughed out loud, and pulling out a handkerchief, carefully wiped the spittle off Roger’s face, casually going on to wipe the grubby little paws as well.
“Of course it’s a fish,” he assured Roger. “You’re a clever lad. And a big help to your mummy, I’m sure. Here, I’ve brought you something for your tea.” He groped in the pocket of his coat and pulled out a small pot of jam. Strawberry jam. Marjorie’s salivary glands contracted painfully. With the sugar rationing, she hadn’t tasted jam in…
“He’s a great help,” her mother put in stoutly, determined to keep the conversation on a proper plane despite her daughter’s peculiar behavior. She avoided Marjorie’s eye. “A lovely boy. His name’s Roger.”
“Yes, I know.” He glanced at Marjorie, who’d made a brief movement. “Your husband told me. He was—”
“Brave. You told me.” Suddenly something snapped. It was her half-hooked garter, but the pop of it made her sit up straight, fists clenched in the thin fabric of her skirt. “Brave,” she repeated. “They’re all brave, aren’t they? Every single one. Even you—or are you?”
She heard her mother’s gasp, but went on anyway, reckless.
“You all have to be brave and noble and—and—perfect, don’t you? Because if you were weak, if there were any cracks, if anyone looked like being not quite the thing, you know—well, it might all fall apart, mightn’t it? So none of you will, will you? Or if somebody did, the rest of you would cover it up. You won’t ever not do something, no matter what it is, because you can’t not do it, all the other chaps would think the worse of you, wouldn’t they, and we can’t have that, oh, no, we can’t have that!”
Captain Randall was looking at her intently, his eyes dark with concern. Probably thought she was a nutter—probably she was, but what did it matter?
“Marjie, Marjie, love,” her mother was murmuring, horribly embarrassed. “You oughn’t to say such things to—”
“You made him do it, didn’t you?” She was on her feet now, looming over the captain, making him look up at her. “He told me. He told me about you. You came and asked him to do—whatever it was that got him killed. Oh, don’t trouble yourself, he didn’t tell me your bloody precious secrets, not him, he wouldn’t do that. He was a flier.” She was panting with rage and had to stop to draw breath. Roger, she saw dimly, had shrunk into himself and was clinging to the captain’s leg; Randall put an arm about the boy automatically, as though to shelter him from his mother’s wrath. With an effort she made herself stop shouting, and to her horror, felt tears begin to course down
her face.
“And now, all this time later, you come and bring me—and bring me…”
“Marjie.” Her mother came up close beside her, her body warm and soft and comforting in her worn old pinny. She thrust a tea towel into Marjorie’s hands, then moved between her daughter and the enemy, solid as a battleship.
“It’s kind of you to’ve brought us this, Captain,” Marjorie heard her saying, and felt her move away, bending to pick up the little box. Marjorie sat down blindly, pressing the tea towel to her face, hiding.
“Here, Roger, look. See how it opens? See how pretty? It’s called—what did you say it was again, Captain? Oh, oakleaf cluster. Yes, that’s right. Can you say ‘medal,’ Roger? Meh-dul. This is your dad’s medal.”
Roger didn’t say anything. Probably scared stiff, poor little chap. She had to pull herself together. But she’d gone too far. She couldn’t stop.
“He cried when he left me.” She muttered the secret into the folds of the tea towel. “He didn’t want to go.” Her shoulders heaved with a convulsive, unexpected sob and she pressed the towel hard against her eyes, whispering to herself, “You said you’d come back, Jerry. You said you’d come back.”
She stayed hidden behind her flour-sacking fortress, while renewed offers of tea were made—and to her vague surprise, accepted. She’d thought Captain Randall would seize the chance of her retreat to make his own. But he stayed, chatting calmly with her mother, talking slowly to Roger while her mother fetched the tea, ignoring her embarrassing performance entirely, keeping up a quiet, companionable presence in the shabby room.
The rattle and bustle of the tea tray’s arrival gave her the opportunity to drop her cloth facade, and she meekly accepted a slice of toast spread with a thin scrape of margarine and a delectable spoonful of the strawberry jam.
“There, now,” her mother said, looking on with approval. “You’ll not have eaten anything since breakfast, I daresay. Enough to give anyone the wambles.”
Marjorie shot her mother a look, but in fact it was true; she hadn’t had any luncheon because Maisie was off with “female trouble”—a condition that afflicted her roughly every other week—and she’d had to mind the shop all day.
Conversation flowed comfortably around her, a soothing stream past an immoveable rock. Even Roger relaxed with the introduction of jam. He’d never tasted any before, and sniffed it curiously, took a cautious lick—and then took an enormous bite that left a red smear on his nose, his moss-green eyes round with wonder and delight. The little box, now open, sat on the pie-crust table, but no one spoke of it or looked in that direction.
After a decent interval, Captain Randall got up to go, giving Roger a shiny sixpence in parting. Feeling it the least she could do, Marjorie got up to see him out. Her stockings spiraled down her legs, and she kicked them off with contempt, walking bare-legged to the door. She heard her mother sigh behind her.
“Thank you,” she said, opening the door for him. “I… appreciated—”
To her surprise, he stopped her, putting a hand on her arm.
“I’ve no particular right to say this to you—but I will,” he said, low-voiced. “You’re right; they’re not all brave. Most of them—of us—we’re just… there, and we do our best. Most of the time,” he added, and the corner of his mouth lifted slightly, though she couldn’t tell whether it was in humor or bitterness.
“But your husband—” He closed his eyes for a moment and said, “‘The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.’ He did that, every day, for a long time.”
“You sent him, though,” she said, her voice as low as his. “You did.”
His smile was bleak.
“I’ve done such things every day… for a long time.”
The door closed quietly behind him, and she stood there swaying, eyes closed, feeling the draft come under it, chilling her bare feet. It was well into the autumn now, and the dark was smudging the windows, though it was just past teatime.
I’ve done what I do every day for a long time, too, she thought. But they don’t call it brave when you don’t have a choice.
Her mother was moving through the flat, muttering to herself as she closed the curtains. Or not so much to herself.
“He liked her. Anyone could see that. So kind, coming himself to bring the medal and all. And how does she act? Like a cat that’s had its tail stepped on, all claws and caterwauling, that’s how. How does she ever expect a man to—”
“I don’t want a man,” Marjorie said loudly. Her mother turned round, squat, solid, implacable.
“You need a man, Marjorie. And little Rog needs a father.”
“He has a father,” she said through her teeth. “Captain Randall has a wife. And I don’t need anyone.”
Anyone but Jerry.
Northumbria
HE LICKED HIS lips at the smell. Hot pastry, steaming, juicy meat. There was a row of fat little pasties ranged along the sill, covered with a clean cloth in case of birds, but showing plump and rounded through it, the odd spot of gravy soaking through the napkin.
His mouth watered so fiercely that his salivary glands ached and he had to massage the underside of his jaw to ease the pain.
It was the first house he’d seen in two days. Once he’d got out of the ravine, he’d circled well away from the mile-castle and eventually struck a small cluster of cottages, where the people were no more understandable, but did give him some food. That had lasted him a little while; beyond that, he’d been surviving on what he could glean from hedges and the odd vegetable patch. He’d found another hamlet, but the folk there had driven him away.
Once he’d got enough of a grip of himself to think clearly, it became obvious that he needed to go back to the standing stones. Whatever had happened to him had happened there, and if he really was somewhere in the past—and hard as he’d tried to find some alternative explanation, none was forthcoming—then his only chance of getting back where he belonged seemed to lie there, too.
He’d come well away from the drover’s track, though, seeking food, and as the few people he met didn’t understand him any more than he understood them, he’d had some difficulty in finding his way back to the Wall. He thought he was quite close, now, though—the ragged country was beginning to seem familiar, though perhaps that was only delusion.
Everything else had faded into unimportance, though, when he smelled food.
He circled the house at a cautious distance, checking for dogs. No dog. Aye, fine, then. He chose an approach from the side, out of view of any of the few windows. Darted swiftly from bush to plowshare to midden to house, and plastered himself against the gray stone wall, breathing hard—and breathing in that delicious, savory aroma. Shite, he was drooling. He wiped his sleeve hastily across his mouth, slithered round the corner, and reached out a hand.
As it happened, the farmstead did boast a dog, which had been attending its absent master in the barn. Both these worthies returning unexpectedly at this point, the dog at once spotted what it assumed to be jiggery-pokery taking place, and gave tongue in an altogether proper manner. Alerted in turn to felonious activity on his premises, the householder instantly joined the affray, armed with a wooden spade, with which he batted Jerry over the head.
As he staggered back against the wall of the house, he had just wit enough left to notice that the farmwife—now sticking out of her window and shrieking like the Glasgow Express—had knocked one of the pasties to the ground, where it was being devoured by the dog, who wore an expression of piety and rewarded virtue that Jerry found really offensive.
Then the farmer hit him again, and he stopped being offended.
IT WAS A well-built byre, the stones fitted carefully and mortared. He wore himself out with shouting and kicking at the door until his gammy leg gave way and he collapsed onto the earthen floor.
“Now bloody what?” he muttered. He was damp with sweat
from his effort, but it was cold in the byre, with that penetrating damp cold peculiar to the British Isles, that seeps into your bones and makes the joints ache. His knee would give him fits in the morning. The air was cold, but saturated with the scent of manure and chilled urine. “Why would the bloody Jerries want the damn place?” he said, and sitting up, huddled into his shirt. It was going to be a frigging long night.
He got up onto his hands and knees and felt carefully round inside the byre, but there was nothing even faintly edible—only a scurf of moldy hay. Not even the rats would have that; the inside of the place was empty as a drum and silent as a church.
What had happened to the cows? he wondered. Dead of a plague, eaten, sold? Or maybe just not yet back from the summer pastures—though it was late in the year for that, surely.
He sat down again, back against the door, as the wood was marginally less cold than the stone walls. He’d thought about being captured in battle, made prisoner by the Germans—they all had, now and then, though chaps mostly didn’t talk about it. He thought about POW camps, and those camps in Poland, the ones he’d been meant to photograph. Were they as bleak as this? Stupid thing to think of, really.
But he’d got to pass the time till morning one way or another, and there were lots of things he’d rather not think about just now. Like what would happen once morning came. He didn’t think breakfast in bed was going to be part of it.
The wind was rising. Whining past the corners of the cow byre with a keening noise that set his teeth on edge. He still had his silk scarf; it had slipped down inside his shirt when the bandits in the mile-castle had attacked him. He fished it out now and wrapped it round his neck, for comfort, if not warmth.
He’d brought Dolly breakfast in bed now and then. She woke up slow and sleepy, and he loved the way she scooped her tangled curly black hair off her face, peering out slit-eyed, like a small, sweet mole blinking in the light. He’d sit her up and put the tray on the table beside her, and then he’d shuck his own clothes and crawl in bed, too, cuddling close to her soft, warm skin. Sometimes sliding down in the bed, and her pretending not to notice, sipping tea or putting marmite on her toast while he burrowed under the covers and found his way up through the cottony layers of sheets and nightie. He loved the smell of her, always, but especially when he’d made love to her the night before, and she bore the strong musky scent of him between her legs.
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